


heavy is the head that wears the crown (of horns)

by Nitrobot



Series: Blue Blood Blues [2]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Charlie really is that desperate, Demon Deals, F/M, Marriage of Convenience, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22232503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: “Give me your hand,” he said in that malformed frequency, the weight of his antlers making his head hang as crooked as the rest of him, “and I’ll give you an empire.”Lucifer and Lillith agree to let their daughter pursue her (quite frankly ridiculous) dream of opening a hotel for redemption- on one condition. She must wed an Overlord, so that the Magne family can form alliances and make their reign over Hell stronger than ever (and so that her husband can ruin their shared hotel if he feels like it). Charlie finds herself at a loss, desperate to follow her dream but to also remain free. So desperate that she just might be willing to make a deal with someone...
Relationships: Alastor/Charlie Magne
Series: Blue Blood Blues [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924825
Comments: 17
Kudos: 287





	heavy is the head that wears the crown (of horns)

Vaggie had warned her, pleaded her not to do it, but... what other choice did she have? It was either this or a life spent tethered to someone who was just waiting for her to drop dead so they could replace her in Hell’s brutal hierarchy. Or, worse still, a life clinging to a dream that would’ve been made impossible in exchange for her freedom.

Other demons had given up more than that for far less, but… Charlie wasn’t other demons. She was a Princess. That should have meant that the sky was the limit for her- literally; Heaven was off-limits even for her father, for the obvious reasons. But when it came to what her heart wanted, it was quite the opposite. She couldn’t just go out and find a place for herself to mold into a paradise for recovery. She had no access to Hell’s treasury, not without going through her parents first. She couldn’t even threaten people into just giving her what she needed- even if it didn’t go against her whole reason for going that far, Lucifer’s daughter didn’t have a lot of power outside the realm of the Overlords. Not much at all. 

Sure, people like the Von Eldritchs could be pressured into apologising to her for spilling a drink on her or letting slip a slight she happened to hear. But Charlie was far beyond the days of being doted on for merely existing, for wearing a brand new dress, for fitting so well in her mother’s lap and sitting still like a good girl while yet another portrait was taken to hang up in the castle. 

Outside of her family home, the truth was that no-one gave a shit. Everyone knew she was the Princess, and it meant fuck all to them. Cause, really, the great Lucifer Magne had far better things to do than hunt them down and turn them into worms for the grand crime of upsetting his daughter’s fee-fees. 

No, at her age all people cared about was her fucking cunt, and who was getting near it.

That had been her parents’ price for giving her a chance at her dream. Find a nice, powerful boy, settle down, maybe let him put a baby or five in you, and we’ll get that cute little hotel off the ground to keep you sane. Then just hope that we don’t bribe your husband to fuck it all up for you and teach you a lesson. 

They didn’t say that exactly, of course, but Charlie could still perfectly imagine it in her mother’s voice. The Princess of Hell, the solitary heir to the throne, had obligations after all; responsibilities, duties, far too many already without her going off to run a ‘silly little camp for Sinners’ (all over again, she could practically hear her mother’s grating laughter at such a suggestion). 

But in the future, when she took over from her father, one of those responsibilities would be to deal with Hell’s damned population. What was so wrong about making a headstart on her approach? Everyone else- at least, those who didn’t need to worry about getting caught outside- saw the angels and their exterminations as a blessing (which was the absolute peak of irony). They just sat back and threw a party while the streets below went rancid with demon blood. But Charlie knew there was a better way. Vaggie knew it too. 

They just needed a chance to prove it, without giving into the King and Queen’s bargain.

Which meant Charlie had to make a bargain of her own. 

There was one demon Overlord, only one, who was willing to make deals with other demons. Only one that hadn’t been offered up to her as a suitor. He had no known family, no known weakness. He was the reason Lucifer didn’t like having radios inside the castle.

Vaggie had told her how to summon him, only because at the time she hadn’t thought she’d actually try it out. It was one of those open secrets, something you had to find out from a guy who had a friend who knew another guy who had once known someone who had called upon the Radio Demon. Or, a rarer possibility, someone who had been around when he’d first made himself known. There were still a few surviving listeners to his debut massacre wandering around Hell, trying their hardest to never be seen or heard by him.

The ritual to summon him was simple enough. Suspiciously so, Charlie had thought while secretly writing it down- was this really all it took to get his attention?- but she trusted Vaggie enough that she didn’t question it as she assembled everything in the magma gardens outside. It was the only place she could do it without Vaggie insisting she be by her side for when something inevitably went wrong. After all, only fellow Overlords and family were allowed inside Lucifer’s castle. Anyone else was left singed at the door if they tried to get in.

Hell had no day or night like Earth, not when the light from Heaven above constantly beamed down through the smog clouds, but there were times when the smoke overhead would choke out the light and the only illumination left came from the pools and rivers of lava, when you could do something especially sinful without worrying about being seen. Charlie waited for such a time while her parents were gone from home, tracking the darkest clouds overhead from her bedroom window until they were directly above, until all she could see down below were the glowing lines from the castle’s volcanic centerpiece. 

In usual light, the obsidian sculpture that dominated the gardens looked like a carved angel descending down upon one of its own- the traitor’s wings were crushed to shards beneath its body, its horns reduced to broken stumps, the sharp corners of its face twisted in grief and anger. Charlie had always thought that face had a striking resemblance to her father’s. 

Now, without Heaven shining down upon the tableau, all that could be seen of it was the angel’s glowing mask; the cross over its left eye, the halo hovering between its curved horns, and the jagged grin that told how much it was enjoying the violence it caused.

In such darkness, Charlie couldn’t even read the instructions she’d made a note of. But she didn’t need to. They were, after all, simple enough. And she’d read over them enough times, trying to convince herself that she wouldn’t need them, that she could cite each step from memory.

 **Step one** : Get a radio. Obviously. They weren’t hard to find for cheap; the challenge was finding one from a store that wasn’t owned by Vox. Cause if Vox knew she had one, he’d tell Lucifer, and he’d come barging in asking what the Hell she was up to, blah blah blah. More shit that she didn’t need to deal with.

 **Step two** : Isolate yourself. He didn’t like making deals with an audience (and the last thing Charlie needed was her father walking in on her desperate last bid to get out of his grip). 

**Step three** : Tune the radio so that it wasn’t on any known channel or station, so that it only let out the dead static that existed between them. Audial No Man’s Land. Like being lost in a dark forest full of hissing beasts and wind.

 **Step four** : Close your eyes. After some minutes of being stranded in that fizzling wasteland and listening close enough, you’d start to hear something.

His name.

Everyone knew the Radio Demon’s true name, but most were afraid to say it out loud in the ever-so-unlikely case that they’d accidentally call him forth. But there was nothing accidental about this. 

With her eyes squeezed shut in a world that would have looked just as dark to her if they were open, Charlie soon heard it floating up through the red noise. She had to gulp before she could echo the sound, swallowing the remains of her hesitation before it could make her tongue too heavy to move.

“Alastor… Alastor.” Mingled with the radio’s static, her own voice sounded foreign. 

Once more. Just once more to call him.

“...Alastor.” She exhaled as she opened her eyes into a slightly lesser darkness than before, still facing the garden’s proud statue. 

Only the statue, and nothing else. For a moment flooded with relief, she thought that it hadn’t worked. That, for once, Vaggie had been wrong.

But the radio was louder now, the static ringing deep in her ears, vibrating in the ground beneath her feet. She hadn’t touched it.

The static coughed. It wasn’t the radio.

She turned around, and found Alastor towering over her. His presence burned a hole through the dark, like he was a beacon radiating precious hellfire. He was almost as tall as the statue behind her, including the branched horns sprouting from his head, and his microphone alone was as tall as she was. She knew what he looked like from the paintings, the news reports, the many tributes made to his carnage. But those things always exaggerated their subjects, she’d assumed until now. Alastor was no exaggeration of anything. He was what he was, and he was fucking terrifying.

He was also grinning, waiting for her to introduce herself. Charlie knew her mouth was hanging open, but she didn’t quite remember how to close it or make it move at all. Alastor seemed to get the hint that she wasn’t going to speak first as he bent down to bring his eyes to hers, the red in them glittering like an angel’s glowing mask. His microphone was at his chin, a physical barrier between them that might have been there to make her feel more comfortable. It didn’t.

“Tell me, my dear,” he asked in his static-swaddled voice, barely shifting his grin with each slow word. “...Are you suicidal?”

Charlie was so baffled by the question that, for a lovely moment, she forgot to be afraid of him. “N...n-no, not at all-!”

“Are you sure about that?” he pressed, peering at her through his monocle as his other eye swelled to take over the rest of his crowded face. “You must be at least a little, to be sneaking behind your father’s back like this.” Then he abruptly looked away, and something seemed to pull him aside her with a firm yank on his eyes. He took his burning aura with him as he swooped past, practically singeing her as it slipped through her defenses. 

“Ah, the gardens haven’t changed at all since my last visit!” he exclaimed, with a slow look up and down the grand sculpture at the center. “And I see he still has this garish testament to his endless ego. Typical Lucifer.” He tutted as he shook his head, the tufts of red hair falling flat against his skull before twitching upright again.

“You… you’ve been here before?” That was the only question Charlie could say out loud. The unspoken obvious one was ‘you know who my father is?’, but she already knew that must have been true. Lucifer was the only one other than the angels who could give demons their second death (though he’d never been merciful enough to put the suicidal ones out of their second misery for them). And, well, Alastor was an Overlord. Of course he’d have had some interaction with Lucifer. But he’d never been to any parties or balls or gatherings that Charlie had attended, so… how did he know _her_ just from a glance?

“Why, of course I have!” Alastor chuckled like he was generously humoring her ignorance, turning away from the ‘garish’ statue to face her again. “It’s been a while, true, but I’m still well-acquainted with Hell’s illustrious royal family. Your mother, and your father… and I know all about _you_ , Charlotte.” He leaned in close, like he was was about to reach out for her, close enough that his antlers could have pierced right through her if he so wished. Not that he would dare try it, but she took a step backwards just to give herself some much-needed space away from his gaze.

“Well,” she scoffed, crossing her arms firmly across her chest to stop them from shaking. “You _obviously_ don’t know I prefer to be called Charlie.”

Alastor blinked, and his glare lost some of its glow as it passed behind his eyelids as his grin grew bigger as if to compensate. The Radio Demon caught off-guard? Stranger things had probably happened, but Charlie didn’t know of them. 

“Oh, I much prefer the sound of _Charlotte_ , though,” Alastor told her, using his microphone as a walking cane as he strolled past her. “Soft at first, with a nice firm ‘T’ at the tip of the tongue. Speaking of tea, you wouldn’t have any refreshments prepared, would you?” He flourished his coat-tails so he wouldn’t crush them as he seated himself at the basalt patio table, which was only revealed in the darkness when he approached it. He really must have been here before, if he’d known where to find a seat without needing to look. 

But at that moment, Charlie was more concerned about her hosting credentials coming under fire. Christ, she should have had something arranged to help sweeten the deal she was trying to make. Even just having Razzle and Dazzle bring some cakes or pineapple pizza to her room that she could have brought out with her to keep him occupied (and doing something other than staring at her like a creep). 

“I… didn’t think to…” Charlie coughed, wondering if she could even risk leaving him alone in the garden for the time it would take to run to the castle kitchen. “I apologise for that oversight, I’ll-”

Alastor chuckled again, standing his microphone aside as his long claws tapped out a rhythm on the table in front of him. “Your mother still has much to teach you about hospitality, darling. But no need to apologise. I’m more of a New Orleans bourbon gentleman, anyway. And there’s no time for drinking when there’s business on the table- metaphorically speaking, of course.” He now leaned on the literal table, taking up almost all the surface space with how far his elbow stretched out across it, and his eyes shot up towards the blackened sky. “Dearie me, what awful weather to be spending outside!” As if his own aura had been so blinding that he hadn’t noticed the dark until now. “Then again,” he noted, rolling his eyes back down towards Charlie, “I suppose that suits you just fine for this little get-together. Don’t want anyone eavesdropping, after all.”

Charlie found herself nodding, before she realised that he’d only be saying that if he already knew what she was going to be asking for. She could only assume that he’d heard of her being ‘up for offer’ to the other Overlord families. That saved her some time and sanity explaining it all, at least. She didn’t know if she could tolerate yet another bout of condescending laughter at the mere mention of wanting to help people.

“So…” She made herself take the seat opposite him, keeping her hands safe away from his in her lap as she faced his permanent grin. “You know why I’ve summoned you.” 

“Indeed I do.” Alastor didn’t sound quite so distant without his microphone’s effect filtering through his voice. He kept one hand on its length, like it was a weapon he wanted to have within reach at all times, while the other held his head up from the table with its claws curled into a soft fist. Though the razor ends of his fingers were tucked away, his horns were still a silent and subtle threat that Charlie couldn’t stop herself from glancing up at as she thought of what to say next. 

“Well…” She subconsciously tucked her hair behind her ear, keeping every part of her that she could out of his reach. “Is there anything you can do? Anything _I_ can do, anything at all that’ll change my parents’ minds?”

“Hm.” Alastor moved his hand to his chin, snapping his gaze away for just the moment that it took him to contemplate. “Nope,” he declared. “Nothing at all.”

“What?!” Charlie snapped to her feet, pushing herself up with her hands braced on the table. “You’re supposed to have an answer for everything! Some kind of ‘dealmaker” you are-!”

Alastor regarded her outburst with quiet amusement before he stepped in and leaned over to her. “Now, now, sweetheart, don’t go doubting my abilities for one second. Or you might regret it.” His eyebrows moved together in a wave that seemed to make his antlers jut out, reminding Charlie that they were now hanging within easy distance of her ribcage. She seated herself again, not taking her eyes off him for a moment as he eventually pulled back.

“I’m merely saying that there’s no way for Lucifer and Lilith to be persuaded,” he clarified, “No, no, no; when they make a decision, they tend to stick to it. Otherwise, who knows how many times they’d change their mind on a damned soul? Hell would practically be deserted thanks to their bleeding hearts- and I’d be out of a job!” He laughed at himself, and his microphone joined in with a chuckle of its own. Charlie couldn’t see what was so funny, not when she was busy being mystified by the concept of her parents having any shred of empathy for the Sinners. True, Lucifer had the final say on who ended up stranded in Hell, and usually he just dragged in anyone who didn’t qualify for the pearly gates. The only other option for them was Purgatory, and that place was practically a vacation spot compared to Hell. He’d rather stuff his home full to bursting than let anyone escape torment from him- or, as Alastor was suggesting, maybe he just felt like he had no other choice. 

“Well,” Charlie mused, “if he could take people out of Hell that easily, that _would_ solve the overpopulation problem without needing a genocide every year-”

The laughter stopped abruptly, like a radio unplugged from the wall. Alastor rolled his eyes around in his skull, and the ear-like tufts of hair astride his antlers flicked towards her as he leaned back in his seat.

“But then,” he challenged, “what would Heaven and Hell actually _mean_ to anyone on Earth, if you could just spend eternity in either? If you could be sent to either on nothing more than a whim? How would anyone strive to _redeem_ themselves, if it didn’t really matter where they ended up?”

Charlie didn’t get the chance to try and answer before Alastor swept himself up from his chair onto his hooves, pulling his body up with the stem of his microphone. “That’s what matters most to you, Charlie, does it not?” he asked, taking his light along with him as he slowly strolled away from her. “Redemption? Saving all those poor Sinners out there from themselves, instead of leaving them all to rot until the angels arrive?”

Charlie realised her mouth was bleached-bone-dry when she was about to speak. At first she wondered if his microphone had stolen her voice, but she dragged her tongue around her lips and found it ready and waiting at the back of her throat.

“That’s what the hotel is all about,” she told him, even though he already knew it. “ _Will_ be all about, I mean. When I open it.” 

He’d stopped once again in front of the statue he apparently hated, his back to Charlie as she cautiously approached his side. “You got a name in mind for it?” he asked.

“Er…” No-one other than Vaggie had ever cared enough to ask her that- but of course she had an answer. “‘The Happy Hotel’.”

Alastor cocked his head to one side, his tufts still sticking upright despite Hell’s fickle gravity. “Not quite what I’d have chosen. But it rolls off the tongue well enough.” That seemed to be his version of approval, or as much as she was going to get from him. Good enough. Better than just being laughed at, at least. 

“But it won’t happen unless I find a way around this…” Charlie clenched her fists as they grew claws, “fucking _marriage_ bullshit! If I can’t change Mom and Dad’s minds on that, then what _can_ I do?”

Alastor turned his head over his shoulder, twitching his smile just an inch wider at the sight of her looking so flustered. “Well… the way I see it, you have two options.” The rest of his body faced her with a swish from his coat. “Number 1,” he held up a single claw that matched the ones Charlie was hiding in her palms, “you find the least repulsive Overlord and try to tolerate him while you busy yourself with your… what was it again?”

“Hotel,” she reminded, through gritted fangs. Alastor nodded like he didn’t notice them, and she kept back from doing something she’d regret like she hadn’t already spent hours thinking of all the ways that that option would go wrong.

“Of course, if it was that easy for you, then I wouldn’t be here. Number 2, is…” With two claws turned up towards her, they looked like they could gouge eyes out with a flick of his wrist. “You find someone other than Mom and Pops to finance your dream. Someone who isn’t afraid of getting on their worse sides. The good news for you is that I know just the person. Someone with connections, with disposable wealth, with just enough space in his coal-black heart for the plight of a dear Princess to fit in nice and snug.”

Charlie felt herself deflating as the realisation promptly came to her. “Someone… like you.”

“Give the doll a prize, she got it in one!” Alastor’s microphone let out a triumphant fanfare for her, as if this was anything to be happy about.

“And what would you want in return?” she asked, not in the mood to dance around the price of her salvation. Alastor found her eagerness very amusing as he leaned on his microphone stand. 

“Well, my dear… that’s the bad news. I would want a stake in the hotel, of course, as an equal shareholder. But, believe me, property laws around here are simply _Hell_ to deal with.” He allowed himself a laugh at his wit. “As I’m sure you know, the only way for two demons to own _anything_ equally without that classic sin of greed kicking in is...”

Charlie knew what he was waiting for to finish with. She’d known it as soon as he uttered ‘equal shareholder’, that word that was quickly becoming acid sitting between her ears whenever she had to hear it. 

“Marriage.” She eventually managed to spit it out. “You… you’re saying I have to marry _you_.”

“Only for the legal perks, of course,” he reassured, as if it was supposed to be assuring at all. “It would purely be a formality. A stepping stone towards your dream becoming brimstone-and-mortar reality.”

Charlie only half-heard him while still numb from realising that his offering was serious; that it was a possibility, something that she would ever even consider. He could have probably ran his horns right through her and she wouldn’t have noticed for a few seconds. At that suspended moment, all she wanted to cloak herself in the dark before it fled from her, but Alastor’s infernal glow kept it away from comforting her. 

“Have you... ever done something like that before?” she asked out of curiosity starting to gnaw at her. He must have had previous, similar dealings to offer something like that so readily. If he was already married for a contract, that would have explained why her parents never saw him as a suitor (as well as the more obvious reasons…).

Alastor actually thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Can’t say I have. Never had to. But for such an _illustrious_ client as yourself, I’m willing to go outside my comfort zone.” He gave her a look that might have been charming on someone else. Anyone else. Or maybe just at a different time. _Any_ other time. 

“No… no, no no,” she shook her head to try and mix some sense out of her thoughts, “this… what you’re asking is out of the question. I’m trying to _avoid_ getting married to _any_ one, that’s the whole reason I summoned you!”

Alastor actually had the fucking audacity to roll his eyes, like she was a little kid throwing a tantrum. “I’m afraid a lady of your status simply can’t avoid it. It’s a powerful thing, marriage. Just you saying ‘I do’ to the right or wrong person could plunge Hell into a thousand years of torment or prosperity. Not that you care about that, so long as Daddy Dearest gives you your hotel.”

“ **I never asked to-** !” Charlie clamped her mouth shut when she saw her forked tongue shoot out, and her claws pressed deep into her cheeks as she closed her red eyes. ‘ _Don’t lose your cool… don’t take shit from no demons, and don’t give them shit you can’t handle.’_ Her true form was just one of those things. She didn’t need Dad’s lectures ringing in her head to remember everything about that. Like what had happened the last time it had gotten out.

Charlie exhaled through her talons as they softened to fingers again, and felt the pressure in her molten eyes let go as they settled back to their safe pale yellow. Her horns weren’t out, thankfully, so Alastor wouldn’t see it as a threat display. When she felt like she could open her eyes again, she found that he just looked a little perplexed by her display. Better than offended. Wait, but _she_ was the one who was supposed to be offended! God, she really wasn’t very good at this.

“Alastor,” she said carefully, folding her hands behind her back and mirroring him as she did, “I may be the one asking you for a favor, but _you_ are a guest that I’ve invited here into my home. And you will treat me with respect deserving of my rank, or you will leave empty-handed.”

Alastor’s eyes widened to rival his smile, and his monocle almost popped right off his cheek. “Well, I see I was mistaken,” he said, almost sounding proud of her. “Lilith has taught you quite a bit. You’re lucky that I’m a gentleman who gives respect where it's due.” He twirled his microphone behind his back, making it land in front of him so he could speak into it and broadcast his next words loud and clear. “But Lilith’s manners can’t get you out of this situation of yours, sweetheart. All you can do for yourself right now is give me an answer. Yes, or no.”

He was bent down so that he could fill her vision, so he could watch her wrestle with what she truly wanted to say. Or, rather, what she _had_ to say to get what she truly wanted.

“This is the only other way…?” Charlie saw no point in hiding how defeated she felt, not when she guessed that getting her to such a point had been Alastor’s plan all along.

“Think of it this way,” the Radio Demon offered, straightening so that she could see him spread open his empty palms like they were conducting a ceasefire, “hotel or no, deal or no deal, at the end of the day your dear parents still want you to marry you off to an Overlord. If you’re already spoken for, then they can’t try any trickery to get you hitched to someone who would just sell off the hotel at the first chance they get.”

Charlie blinked twice, only seeing his point in the moment between them before another concerning one instantly overtook it. “How do I know _you_ won’t do exactly that?”

Alastor let out his biggest laugh yet, a grating sound that made his aura swell so that it almost covered the whole garden and set her on fire. “Darling, there are far easier ways for me to make a quick buck. If that was all I was interested in, then there’s a hundred other poor souls on other frequencies that I could be dealing with right now. No, no, no, I’m looking for something far more substantial than money. Besides, I’m not expecting this business of yours to be profitable. Not in the traditional sense, at least.”

“Then… what _do_ you get out of it?”

Alastor grinned at her. He was always doing that, true, but this time he was purposefully letting her see the corners of his mouth form their jagged peeks.

“...Let’s just say, I get bored easily,” he answered. “I think this venture of yours can keep me entertained for quite a while, whether or not you manage to pull it off.”

“You’re gonna put yourself in thousands of dollars of debt and piss off the King and Queen of Hell just cause you _feel like it_?”

“Precisely!” He sounded excited for such a prospect. So, he really _was_ fucking insane. Which strangely reassured Charlie- she’d rather be in business with a lunatic than someone who had enough sense to know how to stab her in the back. But that was just about the only thing that wasn’t giving her warning lights throbbing in her skull.

“And this ‘marriage’,” she could only say the dreaded word if she contained it within her fingers making quotes in the air, “if the hotel fails or if anything else happens, can it be made void?” She wasn’t about to forfeit her life if her dream ever did have to come crashing down, just because she hadn’t read the fine print at the wedding (God, the _wedding_?! Why was she even planning that far ahead when she was still going to say no!?).

“Of course.” Alastor bowed as if that would make his pledge any more sincere. “I’ll even make it part of the deal, if you wish.” He opened his hand, and a thick sheet of parchment materialised in his claws as he dragged one across it like it was a pen. Charlie recognised it as an official demon contract; the handshake was still what created the deal itself, but the paper made it much easier to keep track of who owed who what. 

“Our union will only last for as long as the hotel remains open,” he stated as he amended his contract. “There, now I have no reason to let it fail. And you don’t need to keep looking like a poor doe caught in the headlights.” He was even so generous as to let her read the document by handing it over to her. At first she was scared to even touch it, but other than the words weaved into its pulp it really was just regular parchment. It was just those words, written by his binding hands, that made it so haunting to look at. 

_‘In return for financial and entrepreneurial aid, the debtor Charlotte Magne agrees to join the debt holder in marriage for equally shared property. The union will be dissolved if the debtor’s business is ended, closed, destroyed or otherwise made inoperable.’_

Simple, really. Just like the ritual that brought him here. She gives him her hand in marriage, he gives her a hand full of cash. Was that like prostitution? No, she supposed; at least prostitutes could just move on after they got paid.

But... it was just a formality. The ultimate marriage of convenience. It wasn’t like they were bound together by anything more than the contract. It would protect her from her parents’ attempts at (literal) husbandry. It would give her the key, at last, to her hotel. 

This was what it would take to turn Hell into a rehab for sinners rather than a sanctuary and, maybe one day, call off the exterminations once and for all. 

‘ _If this works out,’_ said that voice in her head that sounded so much like Mother’s sometimes, _‘you might even find a way to redeem someone like him. In return for all his help.’_

“How about it, Charlie?” Alastor’s radio voice came from above as he stood over her, watching her reach the end of the parchment where their signatures would go. It was a voice frayed with static, heavy with distortion, like he was struggling to hold the wavelength together in his throat. Like it would fall apart into indecipherable snarls of black and red noise at any moment. 

“Give me your hand,” he said in that malformed frequency, the weight of his antlers making his head hang as crooked as the rest of him, “and I’ll give you an empire.”

His arm was stretched out to her, the hand aimed like a muzzle, and behind his smooth claws his palm bled a crimson glow. There was a long moment before Charlie was able to look away from it. 

In her own hands, she still held the contract. And it didn’t say anything about _when_ the deal had to be made.

“Can I think about it?”

Alastor seemed to be frozen still, until his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. With how crowded his face was with twisted features, it was hard to tell when anything went smaller.

“Very well.” His hand fell empty to his side and his voice settled back into its regular resonance. “I’ll leave the contract with you, to peruse at your leisure. Once you’ve made your choice, just tune in again and we’ll settle things once and for all.” He folded his microphone against his back, once again treating it like a cane, as he walked past her. This time, his glow didn’t scald her. This time, she didn’t feel it at all. She kept her eyes on the parchment, almost expecting it to change to curses and threats, content to let Alastor see himself out. 

“Oh, and Charlie?”

The Princess looked up from her reading and towards him. He was next to the radio she’d used to summon him, but he didn’t touch it. 

“I don’t mind giving you all the time you need,” he told her, forever grinning his sincerity. “But if I know ol’ Lucifer, he’ll be getting impatient… I’d advise making your decision soon, little doe. Before he makes it for you. Tata for now!” 

As he waved a farewell, Charlie felt something catch in her eyes and make them sting. When she blinked, he was gone. The radio was still there on the ground, and the contract still there in her hands. She suddenly felt like she wanted to burn it.

Marrying the Radio Demon. Vaggie would have decapitated him just for making the suggestion. But she wasn’t the one trying to save all of the underworld.

Charlie wanted a hotel for those who needed it, he wanted something to cure his boredom. Somehow, she had to deliver both. Because she had her duties as a Princess; and then, one day, as a Queen.

 _‘I already have an empire. And I don’t want it. I never did.’’_ As she stood there lamenting by herself, the dark clouds overhead finally moved away to reveal Heaven above, like the angels up there were watching and mocking her.

She didn’t want a freakshow. She didn’t _want_ Hell at her feet, begging her to give them the help they needed. But it didn’t matter so much what she wanted. What mattered was what was best for Hell. Its people. _Her_ people. 

If her father wouldn’t let them earn a second chance, then who would? Certainly not someone like Alastor. But his help was the only other option she had.

The devil she barely knew versus the devils she didn’t know at all.

Either way, she couldn’t get out without saying “I do” to one of them.

But, either way.... she got her hotel.

When she returned to her bedroom, breaking the radio into tiny pieces that couldn’t be pieced back together in the trashcan, she went looking for a pen.

**Author's Note:**

> This likely won’t be continued since I have too many other things I want to write, I just had to get this out of my head first.  
> Also. since this is basically (and secretly) a songfic already; Cult of Personality by Living Color. That’s Alastor’s ~~(and CM Punk’s oh god I miss him so much)~~ entrance theme right there. You’re welcome.


End file.
